The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [203]
Lieutenant Hearn stood for a time on the pilot's hatch at the stern, staring down into the troop well. He was a little weary; only an hour or two after Dalleson had told him he was to be assigned to recon he had been given the instructions for the patrol, and the rest of the day had been spent in checking the men's equipment, in drawing rations, and in absorbing the maps and orders Dalleson had furnished him. He had acted automatically, efficiently, postponing until later his surprise and pleasure at being transferred from Cummings's staff.
He lit a cigarette and gazed down again at the men clustered in the rectangular box of the troop well. All thirteen were squeezed into an area not more than thirty feet long or eight feet wide, together with their equipment, their packs, rifles, their cartridge belts and canteens, and the Army cots they had spread out on the floor of the boat. He had attempted earlier that day to procure an assault craft which had bunks built in along the walls but it had been impossible. Now the cots filled most of the available space. The men squatted on them, their feet drawn up to keep them free of the water that washed along the deck. Under their ponchos they winced whenever some spray would arch over the front ramp.
Hearn examined their faces. He had made it his business to learn their names immediately, but that was hardly equivalent to knowing anything about them, and it was obviously important that he should form some quick idea of them as individuals. He had talked to a few casually, joked with them, but it was not a process he enjoyed particularly, and he knew his own aptitudes were poorly suited. He could learn more from observation. The only trouble was that observation was necessarily slow, and by tomorrow morning they would land on the beach, begin their patrol, then every bit of knowledge about them would be important.
As Hearn watched their faces, he was aware of a vague discomfort. It was the kind of physical readiness, the slight guilt, the slight shame, perhaps, that he had felt in walking through a slum neighborhood, conscious of the hostility of the people who watched him pass. Certainly whenever one of the men stared at him, it was a little difficult not to look away. Most of them had hard faces; their eyes were blank with something cold and removed in their expression. As a group they had a forbidding and rigid quality as though they no longer held an excess bit of weight nor a surplus emotion. Their skins had turned sallow, almost yellow, and their faces, their arms and legs, were pocked with many jungles sores. Nearly all of them had shaved before they started out, and yet their faces were unkempt their clothing sloppy.
He looked at Croft, who had put on a clean fatigue uniform. He was squatting on his cot, sharpening his trench knife against a little whetstone he had withdrawn from his pocket. Hearn knew Croft perhaps best of all, or more exactly he had spent the most time with him that morning discussing the patrol, but actually he did not know him at all. Croft had listened to him, had nodded, spat occasionally to the side, and answered him when necessary with a few bare words, uttered in a low toneless murmur. Croft obviously handled the platoon well, he was tough and capable, and Hearn was reasonably certain that Croft resented him. It would be a difficult relationship to handle, for Croft knew more than he did yet, and unless he was careful the platoon would soon realize it. Almost with fascination, Hearn watched Croft working on his trench knife. He brooded over it, his cold gaunt face examining his hands as he drew the blade back and forth against the stone. There was something frozen about him, something congealed in the set of his tight mouth, the concentration of his eyes. Croft was tough, all right, Hearn told himself.
The boat was turning now, angling against the swells. Hearn grasped a strut more firmly as it jarred against a wave.
There was Sergeant Brown, whom he knew slightly; he was the one who looked like a boy with his snubbed nose and freckles and light-brown hair. The Typical American Soldier -- the agreeable composite hatched out of the tobacco smoke and hangovers of the advertising conferences. Brown looked like all the smiling soldiers in the advertisements, a trifle smaller, perhaps, plumper, more bitter than was permissible. Brown had an odd face actually, Hearn decided. Up close there were jungle sores on Brown's skin, and his eyes had become dull and remote, his skin had begun to wrinkle. He looked surprisingly old.